


this is who i am baby, just follow me

by kanoitrace



Series: In Regards to Life and Love [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode 11, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 03:06:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8873392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanoitrace/pseuds/kanoitrace
Summary: Theme of King JJ is his reminder to himself that he can do anything, but it has no meaning if she isn't by his side.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The JJ/Isabella fluff that seriously nobody asked for (except my one friend after I was already writing). Look, I just have a lot of feels about them, okay!? Title taken from Theme of King JJ, more specifically, the lines we see Isabella singing in episode 11.
> 
> Makes reference to [my other fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8852668), though it isn't specifically necessary to read it.
> 
> Unbeta'd.

JJ opens the door to his room, and there she is, the most beautiful girl he’s seen, and she’s wearing his ring. Still wearing it, despite the day he just went through. Honestly, it all seems too good to be true some days; that she’s stayed beside him.

_The first time JJ ever sees Isabella, he doesn’t know her name. He doesn’t know her age. He doesn’t know anything about her other than she might be the prettiest girl he’s ever seen, and he’s seen a lot of pretty girls in his life, short though it has been at only fifteen – thank you, figure skating. He’s at the local rink with his parents, making laps around this ice while they wait for the public skate to finish. She is skating with a group of other girls, and her balance is okay, better than some of the others with her, but she’s no natural on the ice._

_That’s okay, he thinks, because she’s caught his attention better than any ice dancer ever has._

_Someone shouts his name – his mother, maybe? – and before he can turn to respond, he’s run into a group of young children, falling to the ice and taking them out with him. As he quickly apologizes, the reprimands he knows he’ll get from his parents to_ Pay attention, JJ! _playing in the back of his mind, he glances over to where she is, noticing finally, finally, she’s now looking at him. His face burns with embarrassment until she smiles sweetly at him, and then he’s blushing for a whole other reason._

_The moment is broken by one of the kids starting to cry and his mother coming over to talk to the parents, and when he finally gets the chance to look for her again, she and her friends have already left the ice._

_It doesn’t matter, he thinks once the ice has cleared and it’s just him and his parents and the music for the short program of his senior debut, I have more important things to focus on than a pretty girl._

Isabella’s attention is on him as soon as he’s crossed the threshold, her smile making his breath catch in his chest, and he’s smiling back. She goes back to looking out the window, saying, “It’s so beautiful here, romantic.” She laughs, and JJ is once again hit over the head with just how much he loves her.

_Weeks pass, and JJ still sees her. Sometimes she comes in with friends, sometimes alone. One time, there was a boy, and it’s stupid, he doesn’t even know her, but he feels jealous and fired up. He performs a flawless triple toe loop in the middle of a crowded ice rink. It gets him scolded by his parents and the skate guards, but when he chances a glance at her, she’s looking at him and smiling. He tentatively smiles back, and then it’s gone as his father yells at him, “We ought to ban you from the ice for the next week!” It’s an empty threat since he’s training for his senior debut, but it still gets his full attention and makes him feel the tiniest bit guilty. Just the tiniest bit though, because he can’t squash the pride that blooms in his chest at the fact she seemed impressed._

He crosses the room quickly, enveloping her from behind and burying his face into the space between her shoulder and her neck.

Gently, she scratches her nails through his hair, and he nuzzles against her in response. She doesn’t say a word. She’s like that – always knowing when he needs a push and when he needs silence. She’s like that – perfect. He pulls her closer and bites the inside of his check. The hand not in his hair goes to wrap around his own. He feels the metal of her engagement ring against his skin.

_She’s the one who first breaks the ice between them (pun not intended, as much as JJ loves a good pun)._

_It’s JJ’s day off, but he’s never been good at knowing what to do with himself when he’s not skating, so the day finds him at the skating rink. Alone. He’s never been particularly adept at making friends, and between his family and his skating, it’s not as though he has much time to feel the absence of such things. Besides, people are difficult and confusing and he’s never quite sure just what to do with them when he isn’t competing against them, which is why he stands like a deer caught in headlights when she rushes up to him, sliding in a small semi-circle around him as she stops herself the beginner way, and starts talking at him a mile a minute._

_He learns her name is Isabella and she’s seen his skating before and she thinks it’s just fabulous and does he compete? He must compete. And she is sixteen, are they the same age? She thinks they must be close to the same age. And where are his parents today? Those are his parents, right? Or are they his coaches? Both? That’s a thing that happens, righ?. They do look familiar, maybe she saw them on TV once when she was very young?_

_It’s all incredibly overwhelming, and he finds himself yelling, “STOP!” before he can reign in the impulse. The talking immediately ceases, and it is with a feeling of absolute dread that he realizes he’s just ruined it. She was talking to him, and he ruined it! Humiliation and shame start to war in his stomach as a few people look at him oddly and she – Isabella, Isabella is her name, he’s just learned her name and already he’s going to have to forget he ever knew it – stares at him with wide eyes. The world falls away, suddenly he can’t hear anything, can’t feel the cold of the rink. All he knows is he screwed up and he might vomit on the ice, he’s never vomited on the ice –_

_Isabella blinks and she smiles and she laughs, and the sound and the cold come back. The anxiety is gone, but his breath catches in his chest. She isn’t just pretty; she’s beautiful._

“ _Sorry,” she says, “I’ve just been wanting to talk to you for so long, it all kind of came out at once.”_

“Is everything okay?” she eventually asks, and he nods.

“I ran into Yuuri in the hall,” he says.

“Plisetsky?” she asks, and he can hear the furrow in her brow in the tone of her voice.

JJ’s mind supplies him with an image of Yuri Plisetsky offering him the same kind words that Yuuri Katsuki did, and he actually laughs.

He loosens his grip on her, standing up straight and resting his cheek against her hair. “No,” he says, “Katsuki.”

She makes a contemplative sound as she rubs her hand back and forth against his arm.

“He wished me luck,” he says with a smile, “told me I’ll be fine.”

“Hm… Well, I guess it’s different to hear it from a fellow competitor,” she says, and he tries not to laugh at the petulant pout he hears in her voice.

“He gets it,” JJ says softly, staring out at the city lights of Barcelona. Bella’s right; it’s very romantic. He tells her as much.

“Maybe we could honeymoon here,” she says.

_He was not always King JJ. At one time he was just Jean-Jacques Leroy, fifteen and fresh and making his debut in the senior division, the only thing setting him apart from other kids his age in the sport was the fact he had parents with a pedigree in competitive figure skating. He’s not sure he would have wound up here if not for that, though he can’t begin to imagine his life turning out any other way._

_The point remains, one does not start out a king. At fifteen, he is barely a prince, and the competition is all much older than him and much more experienced and home is very far away. His parents are right there, though, rink side and watching, critiquing. They are not just his parents, they are his coaches. It is a lot of pressure._

_Needless to say, he crumbles._

_At fifteen, confidence does not come easily to him; he has not yet learned how to pretend the competition does not faze him._

_He goes home, defeated, humiliated, and feeling as though he has failed his parents. They talk of nationals and next season, and he doesn’t hear any of it. He refuses to leave his house for a week – he wouldn’t leave his room if not for food and the bathroom._

_He doesn’t answer his phone when Isabella calls, too ashamed. She’d said she would watch, that she would cheer him on. He has let her down, too._

_He should have answered his phone, because before he knows it, somehow, she is standing in his room, and he’s too shocked to be embarrassed by the mess and posters of figure skaters and the smell that probably exists because he is a teenage boy and hasn’t had proper hygiene habits for the past week._

“ _It’s time to get out of bed!” she says, frowning at him, face alight with determination. “You’re taking me on a date!”_

_JJ blinks, and he stumbles, and suddenly he’s forgotten both French and English or even how his tongue works in his mouth at all._

_Her face softens, her frown turning up into a smile, and she says, “It’s your reward for working so hard.” She laughs, and JJ very much wants to take her out on a date. On many dates, for that matter. She winks, and he swoons. “I don’t date just anyone, you know.”_

He stiffens, and then his arms fall from around her as he backs up a step. She turns to look at him, and he can’t meet her eyes, can’t bear to see the concern on her face. She reaches for his hand, and he lets her take it. He stares at the ring on her hand, and he feels stupid and wrong and weak. But this is Bella, and she knows, so she squeezes his hand.

“What if I don’t win Worlds?” he says softly, self-consciously.

She steps closer, her other hand going up to cup his cheek. “Then you don’t win Worlds,” she says.

_Years pass, and Isabella stays by his side. One date turns into many, and months pass into years. JJ keeps skating, getting better and better each year. The pressure, the competition, it doesn’t get to him as much as it used it. After all, it’s hard not to feel confident when the most beautiful girl in the world is cheering you on. He never gets better at making friends, but with Isabella by his side, he doesn’t need them. Let the competition hate him, let them be jealous._

_JJ is seventeen when Isabella moves to Vancouver for university. They text and they call and they skype every day. They facetime between her classes and his practices. She calls after every competition, congratulating him on his wins and comforting him through his losses. She is his constant cheerleader, and when the season ends, he takes a whole week to go stay with her in Vancouver._

_But long distance is hard, and they are young. Isabella has classes and homework and exams, and JJ is propelling through the rankings and primed to make the Grand Prix Final in the next season. They are in love, but they are practical._

_JJ is eighteen and it is September when they break up. He remembers that the sun was too bright and the weather unusually warm and that even though they said it was mutual, he had cried for hours after._

_He throws himself into his skating, never settling, always moving forward. They had broken up so that they could achieve the things they wanted, so achieve he would._

_Admittedly, they aren’t the best at being apart. He still calls her on weekends to see how her week went, and she still texts to wish him good luck before a competition. They have been in each other’s lives so long, they don’t quite know how to be without._

_JJ is eighteen when he wins bronze at the Grand Prix Final in Sochi. Isabella calls him, crying and happy and so, so proud. They talk, and they talk, and they talk, and their phone bills are going to be astronomical, but neither of them cares because JJ made the podium, and even though it was through a grainy live stream, Bella saw him do it!_

_He changes his flight destination from Quebec to British Columbia, and when he sees her for the first time in months, he kisses her like his life depends on it and they’re both crying like fools in the middle of an airport._

_The visit is short – JJ has to get back – but they’re in love and they’re together, and that’s what matters._

_In the spring, Isabella transfers to a school in Quebec._

_In the fall, JJ’s parents help them move into their own small apartment._

_In December, JJ proposes and she says yes._

_JJ is nineteen when he gets the lowest score of his senior figure skating career – lower even than the year he debuted._

“I promised to marry you after I won Worlds,” he says, and he isn’t purposefully trying to be belligerent, honestly.

She lets go of his hand, and for a moment, he panics, but then she’s cupping his face with both hands and tilting his face up to look at her.

She’s beautiful like this, haloed by the city lights coming through the window.

She’s beautiful always.

“Jean-Jacques Leroy,” she says, and he winces, “we already have the venue, and I already have the dress.”

She’s right, he knows she is.

“But,” she says, and she smiles at him, the smile he fell in love with, the smile that means she see him, really sees him, “we have our wholes lives ahead of us. Whether you win Worlds or not, it doesn’t matter to me. I’d marry you today, if you asked me, but you won’t. You’re stubborn and competitive and you do stupid things like toe loops in crowded rinks and hinging marriages on medals and teasing angry, Russian teenagers who might stab you with an ice skate.” She laughs, and he swoons, his hands going to either side of her face so he can keep her eyes on him, too.

“But I love you for all these things,” she says, gazing at him with just as much love as he feels for her. “So when you win Worlds, we will get married. If, for some reason, you don’t win Worlds, we can still get married, if you want.” Her eyes are filling with tears, but she’s still smiling, still proud, still in love, and JJ feels the same about her – always, always, always. “Or, if that happens and you want to wait, we can wait. I’ll cheer you on for as long as it takes and after.”

JJ’s filled with the overwhelming urge to kiss her, so he does. “I don’t want to wait,” he says.

She laughs. “Good, neither do I.”

_Isabella is twenty when she leads a whole stadium in cheering her fiancé’s name because it doesn’t matter how he scores, she is simply so very proud._

 

**Author's Note:**

> So head canon that he wrote Theme of King JJ after they got back together and he'd won bronze because he was high on life and wanted to remember that feeling. 
> 
> Also, I cried at the end of this while writing it AND editing it. I'm a wuss.


End file.
